An Intergalactic Icon Passes on-Leonard Nimoy (Mister Spock) At 83

 

 

 

 

 

No I was never a Trekkie, never got into the series very much although most of the people that I know from back when the series started have now come out of the “closet” and admitted to their Trekkie-dom, admitted to seeing Mister Spock as the coolest of the cool on the show. Well what not he was a Vulcan after all, okay,okay,half-Vulcan for the purists, the smartest of the smart, non-earthling division. And that wisdom should speak volumes to new generations who watch the old shows.

My take on the death of Leonard Nimoy is a little difference since I will admit that growing up in the red scare Cold War 1950s when there was a heavily-invested drive to explore the universe (or universes) by both the former Soviet Union and the United States I was as caught up as any kid with the idea of space travel, or in lieu of that, becoming a rocket engineer and putting people into space to see what was out there. Of course I had one problem, I had two left hands, meaning every time I tried to figure out how to make a model rocket fly it ended up in flames, or almost killing somebody, including me. Despite that short-lived dream, replaced by more earthy concerns via politics, I had a sense of wonder long after about what was out there, about what we could learn about other possible civilizations on other masses in space. I don’t hear kids today speaking in that same kind of reverent tone but I hope I am wrong on that. That feeling of wonder was pretty contagious at the time as everybody worried through the various manned launches. That sense of wonder is also what I think drove shows like StarTrek to be so popular. And that is where Leonard Nimoy as Mister Spock is permanently etched into the heavens as the coolest of the cool.